Saviour
by theverystuffoflife
Summary: "It was true that Ethan was struggling to get his head around fatherhood. It was for good reason, for Ethan was choking, drowning, strangled by grief itself." – an AU. [Lily/Ethan], [Ethan/Cal]


**Hello! Long time no see. I'm just coming to the end of my first year of nursing school, about a week left of placement now, and I've finished up all my work for the term - and so the writing brain is apparently back full force! This little idea bloomed from another entirely different idea, which I will probably also write at some point. Apologies in advance as I'm a little bit rusty with the whole fic malarkey. This is also very angsty. I hope you all enjoy :)**

The tiny infant nestled her head into her mother's neck, little suckling sounds echoing in Lily's ear as she cradled her baby daughter close, the baby barely visible under the blankets she was swaddled in. It was January and Lily was more than conscious that being exposed to the winter elements at only three weeks old was not ideal and that baby Callie should definitely be tucked warm into her pram, but her daughter already was very disgruntled at the idea of being put down for more than a millisecond. Lily's own mother had expressed that Lily and Ethan were making rods for their own backs for allowing baby Callie to "get her own way" but Lily found that she herself was a little more than a bit reluctant to let go of her little girl and so nestled into her mum's neck was exactly where Callie spent the majority of her time.

The frost crunched under Lily's feet as she slowly made her way across the damp grass, looking for her husband through the fog. He had gone on ahead as they pulled into the car park. Lily had agreed for Ethan to leave her sat in the car feeding Callie, encouraged it even, but that hadn't stopped the stab of hurt as he'd readily agreed and jumped out of the vehicle without so much of a second glance to his wife and his daughter.

It was true that Ethan was struggling to get his head around fatherhood, all but rejecting his first-born child. It was for good reason, for Ethan was choking, drowning, strangled by grief itself. His brother had died just under a week before his daughter was born, a tumultuous and premature labour brought on by the stress of Caleb's death. Born at 35 weeks, baby Callie Emilia Matilda Aleron Hardy came into the world tiny but screaming, nothing but a bit of jaundice to contend with, but the fright of her traumatic birth had sent Ethan even further into the spiral of grief that was enveloping him. Faced with a wife bleeding heavily and in pain, her blood pressure through the roof and his unborn child's heartrate plummeting, Ethan had bolted from the operating theatre before knowing either of their fates, convinced he was about to lose the remainder of the family he had left.

Lily understood why exactly Ethan had reacted the way he had, but had struggled to forgive him for being left to give birth alone and frightened. In the weeks since Cal died suddenly, found stabbed and bleeding to death in the hospital grounds, the relationship between Lily and her husband had become fraught. They argued often, Lily desperate for help or at the very least some emotional support as she grappled healing from a traumatic birth whilst trying to get to grips with feeding a premature baby.

Ethan was rarely in the flat that they shared. At first, Lily was unsure where he was, her irrational post-natal hormones convincing her that he was having some sort of affair to escape from the upheaval in his life, but one evening as she sat alone in their cold, empty flat desperately trying to calm her screaming two-week-old and herself sobbing, a visit from Alicia had soothed her worries. Alicia had had a heated and furious argument with Ethan himself as he'd lost his cool with a patient, and Alicia discovered he'd been spending his nights in the on-call room of the ED instead of at home with his wife and child. Already all too aware Ethan had declined to take both compassionate and paternity leave, Alicia became more concerned about her friend, the thought of her being at home alone plaguing her thoughts. She couldn't have timed her visit better, at a point where Lily's thoughts had never been darker. She'd taken one look at the distressed pair and taken baby Callie from Lily with no protests from the baby's mum. The new-born immediately settled in the arms of the calmer woman, her soothing Geordie accent lulling the little girl into a long and peaceful sleep. Placing the baby into her Moses basket, she enveloped Lily into a hug, rocking her and using the same soothing tone that she'd used with her daughter.

"I'm scared Ethan's going to leave me…can't do this by myself," Lily had sobbed into the junior doctor's shoulder. Alicia reassured Lily that this was not going to happen, all too aware that may have been exactly what the man was planning, and encouraged Lily herself to take a nap alongside her daughter. Alicia didn't have to say it twice, because Lily was soon curled up on the sofa with a blanket tucked over her, the Moses basket containing baby Callie by her feet. Alicia had cleaned the entire flat from top to bottom, made the exhausted new mother a much-needed cup of tea and rang Ethan a grand total of 11 times before he finally answered his phone. She demanded that he came home immediately, and despite being so caught up in grief he could barely see beyond it, his conscience and need to protect his wife struck him and he did exactly what he was told. That night, the two of them slept in the same bed, with their new-born nestled between them, for the first time since she was born. It was exactly how Lily had envisioned their lives together before all of this had happened. Since then, things had been better between Ethan and his wife. They argued less often, more likely to sit in companionable silence but all too aware so many things between them had been left unsaid, most notably the fact that Ethan seemed to forget his fatherhood role.

Today they'd come to the churchyard in which Caleb had been buried two weeks previously, told that his headstone had finally been installed at his grave. Ethan was keen on making the trip to see it, despite Caleb being buried hundreds of miles away in Yorkshire; next to where their mother Emilie had also been buried. The practicalities of making such a trip accompanied by a wife still recovering from an emergency caesarean, and a new baby, were beyond him, however they had somehow made it reasonably unscathed. The baby had settled after she'd been fed and Lily worked up the courage to walk across the bitterly cold churchyard, unsure how her husband would have reacted to seeing his brother's name engraved upon a headstone beside his mothers.

She too was unsure how she would react, having given herself very little chance to grieve. She was devastated by the death of her brother-in-law, but had spent the first few days after his demise looking out for her traumatised husband, becoming more and more stressed and then unexpectedly collapsing in the middle of the ED and going into labour. But she missed him. For all his faults, Caleb had been a good man, all too aware of his own shortcomings but as he matured, all too aware of his need to change them. He died a hero, saving his brother and protecting his unborn niece from a life without her father. Cal had been looking forward to the birth of his niece. The man had supported Lily when she'd fainted on shift and then found out she was pregnant, petrified to tell her then boyfriend. He'd told Ethan himself, with Lily's insistence, allowing the man to pour out his worries about being a father and parenting with his eventual development of Huntington's disease to him, telling him to pull himself together and support his partner. Cal had, naturally, been Ethan's best man at their hastily arranged wedding three months later. He started saving his wages instead of wasting them on drinking and girls and then buying the most ridiculously high-tech pram that Lily had ever seen, insisting it was necessary for a pram to cost nearly as much as a small car. She wasn't afraid to admit that part of her reluctance to use the pram, as well as her baby's clinginess, was the pain that struck her heart every she unfolded the pram, remembering Caleb's proud demonstration in the ED staffroom one evening.

Her husband's cries broke into Lily's thoughts as she moved closer to the distressing sound. Emerging through the thick and angry fog, Lily saw a blonde head knelt by one particular gravestone. Shushing her little girl, more out of habit than the fact that Callie was unsettled, she eventually made it to her husband's side. Ignoring the pull of the stitches in her stomach, protesting at her movement, she too knelt by the grave. She rested her head against Ethan's shoulder feeling him shake with the effort of grieving. She reached with the arm that wasn't cradling Callie and took her husband's hand, her warm gloved one warming his icy grasp. At first, he seemed not to react to his wife's touch but eventually he squeezed her hand hard, and turned his head to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. Lily's heart nearly shattered at the tiny gesture, so unused to receiving affection from her husband that it caused tears to well in her eyes.

"I miss him," she whispered, unsure of her husband was in any emotional state to hear her words properly, "but I miss you more. I miss the life we had before he was gone."

"I miss me too," he murmured. "I don't know what's happening to me or how to make it stop. I'm stuck in the past and it's dragging me under."

Lily took a sharp intake of breath at his words, astounded at his honesty. She was lost for what to say, so desperate to keep him in the present and stop him from slipping under again.

"We need you, Ethan," she replied tearfully. "Callie needs her dad. I need you to be her dad. Neither of us had good fathers, we can't let what's happening now mess her up. Cal would hate it."

"I'm so scared of destroying her, Lily. I'm not the one who was supposed to be here to have a family, that wasn't supposed to be me. I was supposed to be the one who stayed alone. I could be wheelchair bound or even dead before she even reaches adulthood. What kind of father does that make me?" Ethan cried.

"All she needs is love, Ethan. Look at her, please just look at her," Lily begged, shakily.

Ethan turned from staring mindlessly at the grave in front of him, toward his wife and daughter. At first, he caught Lily's eyes, seeing the agony and exhaustion behind them for the first time in four weeks. Something pulled at his heart, suddenly realising what the woman had had to cope with alone. Her – their - baby daughter was so tiny and vulnerable and he'd all but left her to fend alone. The guilt struck him at once, and a choked sob escaped his throat. As his gaze rested upon his daughter, the sobs came thick and fast. The tiny girl was curled into her mother, swaddled in thick woolly blankets. A tiny lilac woolly hat sat upon her head, a shock of dark hair poking out from beneath it. Her little lips were pursed, suckling gently as she dreamed. The innocence of the little girl hit him at once, a fierce surge of protectiveness enveloping him. He couldn't let his baby feel the pain that he had felt. He reached out the hand that was not grasping his wife's and brushed a finger against her soft cheek. Swallowing his tears, he cleared his throat and whispered – "Hello, baby girl. You are so beautiful. I am so, so sorry." Glancing up again toward Lily, he saw the tears pouring down her face and his heart broke. He leaned towards her, placing a kiss upon her forehead tenderly before doing the same to Callie. Lily shifted slightly, letting go of her husband's hand to place under her daughter's head, before lifting her and handing her to her father, before he could so much as realise what she was doing.

He took her at once, the parental instinct suddenly kicking in. He cradled her in the crook of his arm, rocking her gently. Callie began to whimper, having stirred with the movement, and he looked up at Lily with panic in his eyes.

She smiled gently at him, in reassurance. "It's alright. Cradle her in the crook of your neck, she likes that."

He shifted her, a little bit cackhandedly, until the baby's head was nestled under his. The baby settled immediately. Ethan felt her soft skin against his, he could smell her newborn baby smell and tears welled up in his eyes once more. "I love you." He whispered so quietly Lily only just made out what he had said, but those three tiny words felt so very significant. Adjusting the baby, he felt confident enough to hold her with one arm and use the other to place around his wife's shoulders, pulling her toward him.

"Things change today, Lils. Caleb isn't here, he isn't at this grave, he isn't in Yorkshire, or Holby. But you are, and so is Callie." He said defiantly.

"He's here all the time, Ethan." Lily replied gently. "When I look at her, I see him, in every little facial expression and noise. She's part Caleb Knight, and we are going to know about it." She chuckled.

"I'm sure we are," Ethan laughed in response. Lily's heart sung at the noise, having forgotten just how wonderful it was to see him smile. He brushed kisses across his baby's head, her cheeks and her tiny nose, taking in every little detail on her face. "You are going to save me, Callie Hardy."

Lily knew it wouldn't be that simple, waves of grief would continue to wash over Ethan and days would go by when she questioned how they were going to survive. But the worst of the storm was over. The sun was beginning to peek through the winter clouds – spring was coming.


End file.
